Song dynasty ends at the Battle of Yamen

March 19, 1279

Cornered against a Guangdong cliff, the remnant Song fleet was smashed by Yuan ships. Loyalist minister Lu Xiufu, holding the seven-year-old emperor Bing, leapt from a ship into the sea. Three centuries of Song rule ended in the South China Sea's warm surf. The mass suicide of loyalist officials who followed Lu into the waves became one of the most mourned episodes in Chinese historical memory.